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Monday, May 26, 2008

The Love Attack

Here's the first story of the week. This one i've written a long time ago. I hope you will enjoy The Love Attack:

Lucia! As she returns into my memories after all those years, I can still feel a cold shiver running through my bones. What a girl! What a woman! Back then she managed to turn our lives upside down, just by being there, just by being her. Oh, those were the days…

I used to live in a poor people’s neighborhood; you know, like the ones you see in the good old movies, where everyone knows everyone else, and they have nothing to be jealous of between them. Poverty, misery, and a frequent burst of laughter, that was our life. Yeah, we did have a good time back then, no matter what. Some food, some drink and a lot of flirting with the girls; that was our everyday routine. I had four brothers and two sisters; a big family. And we were orphans; just like most of the kids in the neighborhood I guess, but I can’t really say that I had a hard time growing up. Being the elder of course I had to help my mother to bring up my brothers and sisters, but that wasn’t such a difficult thing to do. All it took was some brains, and I have to admit that I have always been a bright mind. Nothing would be too difficult for me, apart perhaps, from finding a girlfriend. My family, for many generations belonged to that special species of beings that they call the wanderers. We’d learned to live in the streets, to survive under any circumstances, to pass through hard times dancing and laughing. I used to have a lot of friends. At night time, when we were far too young, we would go out for our little innocent games, but as the time went by and we grew up, well, the hormones grew up with us, and before we even knew it we started thinking more and more about girls, and passion, and all that kind of stuff. In our big neighborhood there were scores of girls; beautiful girls and ugly girls, wild girls and good-mannered girls, devilish and angel-like girls. To have all these girls around you and not flirt; well, that’s a sin. My best friend was Tom, the Green-eyes. That’s what we called him, and I guess you can understand why. Green-eyes was the big guy; the one. He could get any girl at anytime. None of them would ever say No to him. He was a charmer, all right. So, every time I went out with him I knew that in the worst of cases I would get a second hand girl for myself. He always kept the best ones for his personal joy. As for the rest, well, they’d sacrifice their selves to me, so they’d at least satisfy their bodily needs. As every new year came and went we could sense life becoming all the more colorful, beautiful. We didn’t mind the poverty around us. We were young and strong; we wanted to play, to make love all the time, to try new things, to have fun without an end. We thought that nothing could ever shake the foundations of that beautiful and full of passion micro-world of ours. Until one day…

We saw her from a distance and quietly pushed each other with the shoulders. Oh, my god! Who was that chick? Where on earth a beauty like her has been hiding all this time? And what a devilish beauty she had! How can I describe her? Beautiful like a kid’s toy, smooth like silk, a vision of the forest… Damn, I’m not good with words; but that’s exactly how she looked in our eyes. Long straight yellow hair, a body to kill for, and as we found out a few days later, when we got a closer look at her, a pair of bright big blue eyes. “Can we possibly be dreaming?” I asked Tom. He scratched me; he pinched me, I mean, it hurt, so I was wide-awake. For the next few days we devoted ourselves body and soul to the mission code-named: “Where there’s a ship, there is a sigh; where there’s a chick there is panic!” We just had to find out everything about the girl. We were desperate. Women like that didn’t come our way every day, so we’d do anything to find her and win her over. We’d ask friends and acquaintances with no success. Even the old ladies who had spent their entire lives in the hood couldn’t help us. Most of them simply didn’t know her, and those who have seen her like we did, had nothing to tell us about her. As the story goes, her absence, her mystery, made our feelings for her grow stronger. We now wanted her with an unprecedented passion. In our inner eyes she looked just like a miracle; like one of those miracles that take place once in a thousand years; and in that miracle we wanted to put our own mark. One day, just before reaching the black point of despair a clever and bright young fellow told us something that never really occurred to us: “You morons; there’s not a chance that girl is from our hood. There’s something classy about her. Probably she passed from here accidentally. If you really want to find her, you should go to the high society hood…” He was so damned right! How come we never thought of that? So, we started of at that very moment, for the prohibited for us rich-man’s world. We’ve never been there before; we didn’t have a reason to. But, for that girl, we could reach to the end of the earth. We just hoped that that was not too far away. Well, the place we came to was worlds apart from our hood. There was absolutely nothing to connect the two parts; big bright streets, new cars, beautiful ladies and cleanness. We lived in dirt and dust, and they in paradise. We were about to start one of our non-stopping social discussions, but thank god we remembered just in time, that that wasn’t the purpose of our visit there. We had, we just had, to find that doll of a girl. Having no other choice, after asking for directions, we headed for the big hood square. We thought that no matter what, at some time or another, she would pass from there. We waited for many and long hours, and it was almost dark when we suddenly saw her appearing from a side street. We both felt our hearts beating like crazy and cold sweat wetting our backbones. Tom came back to his senses almost at once and touched me on the shoulder. “Let’s follow her.” So we started after her, as I felt myself shivering with excitement. I was madly in love, but madly jealous too, since I knew that I had no real chance there; sooner or later she would be falling for that damned charming friend of mine. But, what could I do? We followed her from a distance, as she left the dazzling bright hood in the direction of a nearby forest. After a while, we saw her enter a huge yard, heading for a big and grand white house. We put a comma to our mission then. We’d already accomplished too much for a single day’s work. The only thing that was left to do before we called it a day was find out her name. Even visions, even the dark objects of desire, need an identity. We found a kid playing in the mud close by, and we asked if he knew the angel’s name. “Oh, her!” he explained, and a naughty expression appeared on his face; “Her name is Lucia.” Lucia! What a name! Divine; like her. When we went back to the hood, both Tom and I allowed ourselves to be drown into deep thinking. “This one is too much for us,” we thought. “Why would she ever even look at us, she who has everything?” “This is not going to be an easy trick,” Tom said, and I agreed. Besides, I’ve decided to give up the chase. She was far over my league. She was rich; and rich girls are very proud; and she would only look at me in contempt. Maybe Tom could do it; I don’t know. I can tell that that was one of the weirdest nights of my life. Tom, who could never stand still for a single moment and was always on the chase for new targets, spend the whole time sitting there quietly; an unlikely angel. He’d just look at the stars and sigh deeply every now and then; and I could see a sense of longing form into his eyes. The very next day, at dawn, even before the big star appeared in the sky, he came and woke me up. “Let us go to Lucia,” he said, and I without sparing a minute to think about it, decided to follow him. He kept quiet all the way to her house. Probably he was trying to figure out a way to approach her. It was still dark when we arrived at our destination. We sat under a tree, waiting, hoping, that that vision of a girl would at some time show up. The sun was way up in the sky when we finally saw her slowly emerge from the yard. I thought we were going to follow her, just like we did the day before, but Tom had some different plans in his mind. He jumped up on his feet and rushed to talk to her, while I sat there watching. At the beginning she simply seemed to ignore him, but after a while I saw her turning furious and start yelling. Tom, for the first time in his life beaten, rejected, came back to where I was. I could read his eyes clearly. He wasn’t going to give up. He would try again and again, and work hard, until one day she would be his. “She will be mine,” he whispered; “She will be mine.” I believed him; because whatever Tom set his mind to do he did. Asking questions here and there, we came to know a lot of things about Lucia. And as strange as it may sound, some of the rich guys and girls knew Tom by fame. As it seems his playboy fame went far beyond the small borders of our hood. “This game turns out to be very interesting,” he confided to me one night. “If she is the way they describe her, then my will and determination to conquer her heart, gets all the more stronger. I really like the girls that play hard to get, but when they find a brave big hug they just slip in there.” Quite a poet, huh? He went and sat outside her home every day. And each and every day she looked at him in contempt. I walked with him there every now and then, just to keep him company, and follow the developments. As long as he was pursuing his goal, the rich girl, I was able to score quite a few times in the hood. Even some of the prettiest girls, who in the past would not even spare me a look, started flirting with me all the time. They needed love and I was more than happy to deliver. “We only live once,” that’s my motto. Well, my friend’s holy struggle for a better country -oups, for a better woman I mean- lasted for too long and didn’t seem to lead him anywhere. But, as time went by instead of feeling disappointed he felt all the more determined to go on fighting. He was quite confident that things were moving in the right direction, glory! “She does want me; but she is too stubborn to admit it,” he said to me. Friends and relatives, and everyone, tried to bring him back to his senses, to make him understand that he’d lost the game, but he would pay no attention to their words. He would only smile cunningly and roll over the edges of his moustache. One day, after a long long time, I’ve decided to take some time off from my ladies and follow him to Lucia’s house. So, we went, and sat and wait. And there comes the bride; Lucia, I mean. And just when she sees Tom, a smile thiiiiiiiis big illustrates her face. That was quite a shock for me. “The bastard,” I thought, “he did it again!” He got up to follow her, while I once again remained there, under the tree, waiting. They came back after a couple of hours; Lucia leading the way, and Tom following her, wearing a face like they’ve just given him a kingdom. “What’s up mate?” I asked. “She invited me to her home. I will go tonight…” he answered and there was a strange light in his eyes. “The dirty old bum is going to be rich,” I thought with a touch of envy in my soul. Well, I’ve decided to accompany him to the house that night, to stand as a witness in his time of glory. I remained hidden outside as he tiptoed inside to go and find his beloved one. But, I couldn’t keep myself there still for too long and after a while I decided to have a look at what was going on. And there he was, the bastard, kissing her, caressing her, getting all ready to… Oh god, she looked so beautiful in that dim red light… Tom was getting ready to… but what was that sound? … he was now reaching… and just then the door burst open and the nightmare of a woman appeared. Tom was frozen by the shock. I started backing of the window because I couldn’t stand watching my friend getting killed. But before I took a few steps, I saw Tom rocketing out of the window like a bullet followed by a big vase, and heard the big fat lady screaming out loud: “Get out of here you filthy cat; I’m never going to let you screw with my little Lucia!” Oh, well, so the fat lady thought. Lucia got pregnant during one of her many, hmm, walks. As for Tom, up to this day, he keeps saying that the kids he had with her were the most beautiful of all, despite the fact that hundreds of cats, from many different mothers, have seen the light of day, thanks to his devious seed.